DE RAT VON MÜNCHHAUSEN

DE RAT VON MÃœNCHHAUSEN

What can I hope for?
Lecture Marinke Marcelis
25.01 2024

 

Marinke Marcelis will give a lecture in the context of the exhibition 'Rewriting The Future'.

The Rat Von Münchhausen will show us tonight that if there is any hope at all, we have to pull ourselves by our own hair and with the necessary imagination, we will have to pull ourselves up out of the swamp. To attempt to do so, we will dive into the Letters on the aesthetic education of man by Friedrich Schiller (1759-1820). In doing so, I will discuss the current exhibition at PARK 'Rewriting The Future', to finally call on two more contemporary thinkers: Patricia de Martelaere (1957-2009), also a novelist, and Judith Butler (1956-). Of which the former (in the texts I will refer to) deals more with the destructive nature of the aesthetically* driven human being and Butler shines a light on the performative nature of the form employed.

About The Rat Von Münchhausen
Perhaps he did not know he was a rat himself when he** lowered his object of research into the glass of water lowered to scientifically demonstrate that a hopeful rat stays in the water longer than a rat without hope. Quietly, he studied how the animal drowned within minutes. Thereupon he lowered a second 'test animal' into the water. Again, the terrified rat floundered for several minutes. Now, however, just before it looked like it was about to die, it was pulled out of the swamp of despair. Dried, comforted and... lowered back into the water. Trapped the poor animal earlier for only a few minutes, overcome by hope, it now managed to hold out for hours would the rat manage to pull itself out of the swamp again?
From a more formal introduction, we will return during the lecture to how it might end up with the Rat!

Want to read more already? Click here.

* By aesthetic I mean the (Kantian) 'fair', not the beautiful, nor art, but I will elaborate on that during the lecture.
** Inspired by Curt Richter (1894 - 1988) and the Baron von Münchhausen (1720-1797).

Marinke Marcelis (1983) studied visual arts at St.Joost (BA) and the Sandberg Institute (MA) and philosophy at Tilburg University (MA). She also completed training as a yoga teacher and Socratic discussion leader. From these different backgrounds, as a philosopher and teacher within higher (art) education, she has focused on a playfully critical analysis of our highly personal aesthetic taste judgements and how they are related to who we think we want to be (as individuals and communities). At the Rockacademie, she teaches the course Identity and Identification, in which students of the Own Act course investigate in a visual and philosophical way the images and stories with which they do or do not want to identify. Within her own visual work, she plays with how meanings come about and shift.
www.marinkemarcelis.com and www.derustelozejager.nl 

Thursday 25 January 2024 
PARK open 19.30 hrs
Start 20.00 hrs
Admission €5 (including tea and coffee on reception)